Warriors: The Four and Four Prophecy
by Dawnstep
Summary: StarClan hadn't warned Jayfeather that he and his three companions would be saving a human world... as HUMANS! Now they must find the other four that the prophecy given to him by Yellowfang tells them of if they ever hope to survive.
1. NinjaCats, Fate, and Family

_Chapter One: Ninja-Cats, Fate, and Family_

"Yellowfang?"

She turned at the sound of her name. His voice was puzzled, and uncommonly open- perhaps even friendly- and that made the old she-cat smile just a bit, showing her yellowing teeth just a tiny amount.

"Why have you brought me here? Is the Clan in danger?"

She chuckled. Funny how the living cats she spoke to always seemed to assume that. "No, no, your Clan is fine, and will be for a while, don't worry about that." _…As far as we know, anyway, _she thought but didn't say.

"No, the problem right now rests very, very far away from here. You might even say it's in another world."

He blinked, his blue orbs glowing with interest. "Another… world? What do you mean? How is that even possible?"

She chuckled again. Even his smug little self couldn't take that one without batting an eye, eh? Heh. "I mean exactly as I said. It's a whole other world, where everything you know- the forest, the lake, the Tribe's lands, your Clan, everything- does not exist." Goodness, this was difficult to explain.

"Well, then how do you know about it? Can StarClan watch the skies there, too?" Ah, his spunk was back. "What are the cats like there? Is it terrible? What's the problem? _Are you sure you're not just making this up to mess with me?" _

"Of course not, you insolent little mouse-brain! Now quit your mindless yapping and let me explain." Her own tongue of spikes wasn't famous for nothing. "We know about it because our worlds are connected. All worlds protected by warriors are connected in one way or another. This is just one of the many we know about. As for your second question, yes, we can. Remember that, it will be important to you later. "

He opened his mouth to inquire further, but she cut him off. "Uh-uh! No more questions from you. Quiet down and let me explain it to you properly."

He shut his mouth and nodded gruffly, obviously having learned by now that arguing with Yellowfang was not a smart idea, even for him. She grinned. "_Thank_ you. Now then. This land is at war with itself, to put it in the most basic of terms. It has… clans, but not as you think of them. Their clans are families, generally very large ones. What you would think of as Clans are called villages, and there are five of them: Leaf, Sand, Rock, Mist, and Cloud."

He blinked in confusion. "LeafClan, SandClan, RockClan, MistClan, and CloudClan?"

She shook her head in frustration. "No, no! Didn't I just tell you they were called villages, not Clans? In particular, they're called _hidden_ villages, and are known as the Village Hidden in the Leaves, the Village Hidden in the Sand… you get the idea."

He nodded. "More like the Tribe's name, then," he muttered. "I see."

She _mrrowed_ in amusement. "Indeed. And they are more like a Tribe, in a way. You really are a sharp one, eh, Jayfeather?"

He rolled his eyes. "All right, get on with it. You don't have to flatter me to get me to do what you want."

She laughed again, but continued. "Well. The villages aren't fighting each other, if that's what you think- they're actually all cooperating, which is rare- so that's not the problem. They are at war with a large, dangerous, and very, very skilled force. They fight together and they aren't in much immediate danger of destruction, but they need help. Warriors are dying, families are being ripped apart, and they can't stop it." She paused for effect, and then continued, "What they need is not fighting force or skill- no, they have enough of that right under their noses- but they need a… push in the right direction, so to speak."

"And I am that push?" Jayfeather guessed.

Yellowfang smiled at him. "Well… the four of you that we're sending, yes."

He narrowed his eyes. "_Four_ of us?"

She nodded. "I think you can fill the first three in on your own."

His tail twitched and his ears flicked in interest. "_Oh._ I see. All right, then. Who's lucky number four? Anyone I know?"

"Well, you must _get _to know them. That's kind of the point." Now her tail was swishing as well… and what was that in her tone…?

"Huh?" he said simply, eyes blank.

"Well, now, little Jayfeather," Yellowfang meowed seriously. Yep, that was definitely mockery in her voice. "You simply _must_ explore your newfound family ties!"

He blinked once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then he screeched at her. "WHAT? _Him?_ Oh, no. Oh, no no no. No way, no how. Dealbreaker, for Lionblaze more than myself, but as he's not here to protect his interests… No. Absolutely not."

Yellowfang just grinned, showing all her teeth. "I think you're forgetting something." Lowering her head so she was nose-to-nose with the raving young medicine cat, she leered at him, dark humor in her gaze. "StarClan, remember?"

"What is that supposed to-?"

_Poof!_

"Ahhh, peace and quiet," Yellowfang sighed contentedly.

"You could have been a bit nicer about that, you know," a sweet voice called reproachfully.

The old she-cat turned, grinning, to face the smaller tortoiseshell femme who was stepping form the bushes. "Sorry, couldn't resist,  
she chuckled, then sobered up to glance at the younger cat seriously. "So, I take it she's on her way as well, then?"

The tortoiseshell nodded fretfully. "Poor dear, she was so confused… I tried to explain as best I could without… well, you know."

Yellowfang nodded. "Yeah. He certainly had a lot of questions, heh."

"You have _no_ idea," came a third, tired voice.

"'Lo, Feathertail! Do tell, do tell!" Yellowfang greeted the third arrival excitedly.

The pale gray she-cat shook her head, smiling gently. "Oh, you don't even want to know," she said, sighing. "Poor thing. He doesn't have much experience with messages from us, so it's only natural he was confused and curious."

After that, they all three fell silent for a while, just staring up at the moon that hung low and crescent-shaped in the sky. Finally, Feathertail spoke up. "Do you think he's doing all right?" she inquired anxiously. "He's sure taking a while."

"I'm sure he's fine," Yellowfang comforted her. "He _did_ have the toughest case, you know."

At that, Feathertail couldn't help but laugh. "That's for sure! He's a little piece of work, all right."

"But he'll have to cooperate just as much as the other three if they hope to succeed," Spottedleaf said quietly. The other two nodded, and the trio fell silent, once again pondering the moon.

The fate of the shinobi world- and, unbeknownst to all but on old geezer of a cat, the warrior world as well- now rested in the hands of the universe's first ever cats-turned-ninjas.

.x.x.x.x.

Whew! Done! That was the longest first chapter/prologue/thing I think I've ever written. I love it though… It was a ton of fun to write. :3

Well! You now know the nature of the plot in a more detailed manner than the summary… but I still consider this a lead-up to the next chapter, though I call that one 'chapter two'; it's where the plot really takes off. Anyway, enough of my rambling! I have a little contest! Whoever can correctly guess first who "lucky number four" is gets… a hug, a cookie, and a special mention in the AN next chapter. :3 Because they'll all be in the next chapter.

Well, guess I better let you go… please review! 'Cha!

-Dawny


	2. Poof!

_Chapter Two: Poof!_

_Poof!_

"-mean? …AGH!"

He was on the ground. He was yelling. And he was furious.

When "he" is Jayfeather, that is not a good combination.

In fact, it was such a not-good combination that it actually took him a second to realize he was no longer in StarClan's sacred realm. But when he did, he freaked out.

Hence the "AGH!"

He jumped to his paws to spin around and search the area.

Which was when he realized something was _really_ wrong.

Because he didn't have paws.

He had _feet._

This discovery was what made him screech like a kit with its whiskers pulled and spin in circles, desperately trying to get a good look at himself. (_At least I can see,_ he noted. _I guess this is sort of like a dream.)_

He soon ascertained that he was, indeed, a Twoleg. He was a little older than a Twoleg kit, yet younger than the parental Twolegs who raised the kits. He supposed this was a translation of a youngish cat like himself- a fairly new warrior, had that been his path.

He was wearing Twoleg clothes: a dark blue- _wait, wait, wait,_ he thought. _Clothes? They're removable furs!_ But his subconscious mind seemed to think that 'clothes' was the appropriate term. Perhaps that was what Twolegs called them. No matter; he decided to let it go for the time being and continued his assessment. Before long, he was thinking more words he didn't really know.

He was wearing a dark blue _t-shirt_ with a whitish-yellow star on it, loose black _pants_, and black _sandals_ with black _socks _underneath. There was a _bag _or _pouch_ of some sort attached to his right thigh by a white band wrapped repeatedly around his leg. He made a mental note to check it later to see if it contained anything. His _hair_ appeared to be gray and shoulder-length (_hair?_ he found himself thinking. _Hair? Am I insane? It's fur! FUR!_), but more than that he could not tell. When he studied his _hands_, he found them to be rather fine-boned, like the rest of him, he noted, and they were encased in _fingerless gloves_ that matched his shirt. Also, his _wrists_ were wrapped in similar _gear- arm warmers._ Comparing himself to a nearby tree, he decided that he was around five _feet_ (_tail-lengths?_ he wondered) tall, and also that he was rather thin.

Having completed his self-examination, he sighed and stared up at the _noontime_ sky. "Well, what now?" he muttered, staring up at the clouds.

As if to answer his question, he heard a _poof!_ behind him and a very familiar voice crying "Wait! Spottedleaf, please-!"

He spun around. In front of him was a very confused and dazed-looking _human (Twoleg! Twoleg! TWOLEG! _he mentally berated himself) _girl_, visibly younger than himself, with soft blue eyes and silvery hair that fell just past her shoulders. She was as tall as him, but no more, equally thin, and dressed in a layered _top_ that was green and orange, black _capri _pants, and _laced _brown _leather boots_ that reached up to her _ankles._ The shirt consisted of a green t-shirt underneath a _cropped_ pink _tank top_ that would have exposed her stomach were it not for the green shirt. The pink shirt had a little version of the star on Jayfeather's chest up in the upper right-hand corner. She wore no arm or hand gear, but had a pouch just like his on her leg.

Then she spoke again. Well, actually, screamed was more like it.

"AAAAHHHH! Human! I mean, Twoleg! I mean- wait, why is it so- wait, why am I- AAAAHHH!"

_Yep, no doubt about it,_ Jayfeather thought exasperatedly. _That's her, all right._

"Dovepaw?" he said carefully, stretching out his arms to try and placate her.

She jumped and stared at him suspiciously, but slowly, carefully lowered her guard as she recognized his voice. "Jayfeather?" she asked relief palpable in her tone.

He nodded at her, and she relaxed completely, even smiling at him a little.

"Well," she said, "I do feel a lot better knowing you're one of the other three. But, StarClan could have warned us a bit better, huh? I mean, what's with being…"

"Human?" he supplied quietly. She blinked, surprised. "How do you- I mean, we- know that wo-"

_Poof!_

"…GaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Lionblaze?" Jayfeather and Dovepaw said, with classic anime sweat-drops, as they turned to face the newest arrival.

The _boy_ blinked owlishly at them, his warm brown eyes as wide as the moon. His hair was a matching brown, with vivid orange streaks, and spiky. He wore a black _jacket_ with white stripes several _inches_ thick on the upper arms, just below his shoulders. Above these stripes were two miniaturized stars, like on the other two's _clothing_, arranged so that you could only see the entire star if you were standing facing his shoulder. His pants were black, he too had a pouch on his leg, and he wore simple, all-purpose black _shoes._

"Jayfeather? Dovepaw?" he gasped, then grinned. "Oh, good! I almost-"

"-thought you came to the wrong place?" Jayfeather completed. Lionblaze nodded, still smiling widely. "But you two are here, so… I mean, _three_ StarClanners couldn't have screwed up… right…?"

There was a rather foreboding silence. But then they all shrugged and knotted together under the tree.

"So," Lionblaze said as they all settled down under the leafy foliage. "Obviously we were three of the four. Do either of you know who the fourth is?"

Dovepaw shook her head, eyes thoughtful, but Jayfeather remained silent, glancing away. Lionblaze narrowed his eyes and studied his brother intently. "Jayfeather?" he asked pointedly. "Do you know something?"

Jayfeather stayed mum, staring into the distance with a slightly guilty look on his face.

Lionblaze saw this and pounced, ruthlessly tickling the shorter boy as he screeched "Who is it, you? Tell me, tell me, tell meeee!"

"I won't tell you, I won't tell you, I won't-!" Jayfeather screeched, gasping for breath as the tickling increased in intensity. But he was cut off by-

_Poof!_

"Wait- Tallstar, I-!"

There was utter silence as the Three and the new arrival stared each other down. Then two jaws dropped to the floor as two voices scattered the birds for miles around.

"NOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOooooo!1!1!11!one!"

Jayfeather sighed, looking over the newest- and final- member of their party.

He was tall and lean, but with clear evidence of toned muscles, especially in his long legs, which were clearly built for speed. He had stormy gray eyes and shaggy black hair, with _bangs_ that flopped down to completely cover one eye. He wore and ensemble nearly identical to Jayfeather's, except that his pants were roughly cut (or perhaps torn, as they appeared) just above the knee. Also, he wore a collar much like a dog's, except it was studded with sharp metal bits. Two like it adorned his wrists in lieu of Jayfeather's arm warmers, and another pair was visible just above the tops of his shoes.

Lionblaze, having by now recovered from the shock and regained his ability to speak coherently, turned to face Jayfeather with a look upon his face that could have sent an entire horde of badgers, foxes, dogs, wolves, and rogues running to their mothers. "You _knew?"_ he hissed, his eyes blazing. "You KNEW and you didn't tell me? I mean, the WindClan stench I can handle, but… but HIM?" He turned to glare at the unlucky source of his fury, who was also seething.

"Look, I'm not too happy about it either," Breezepelt snarled. "But it's not like-"

"Yes, well, we didn't expect you'd be pleased," broke in a new voice.

All four heads whipped around in a comical manner, but only one face lit in recognition.

"_Yellowfang!" _ Jayfeather cried, his voice permeated with relief.

"Yellowfang?" echoed the other three.

"She was one of ThunderClan's previous medicine cats," Jayfeather explained, eyes shining.

The woman nodded, her yellow eyes amused. (Actually, dear reader, it was very lucky that Jayfeather, being blind most of the time, was an expert at voice recognition, because the grinning platinum-blonde vixen, aged about twenty-five, who was standing before them wasn't exactly the first image that came to mind when one thinks of a human Yellowfang.)

"But," she said, "I can't stay long. So all four of you need to shut up, put your differences aside for a moment, and listen."

Though Lionblaze shot one last glare (returned, mind you) at Breezepelt, they all nodded and stared at her intently.

She smiled quickly, then assumed a more serious demeanor, beginning to speak quickly. "All right. First off- on behalf of myself, Spottedleaf, Feathertail, and Tallstar, I apologize for our inability to warn you prior to your arrival here about the… side-effects… of your journey. But the simple truth is, we couldn't tell you much and we… still can't tell you much now. But I'll try to tell you what you need to know.

"Secondly, there is some information you need about where you are- or rather, the people here. Now, I don't know how much the three of you," she said, gesturing to Lionblaze, Dovepaw, and Breezepelt, "were told, but I told Jayfeather rather a lot, so he can fill you in later. In addition to the information he has, though, there is a bit more I can tell you about the warriors here." She paused for breath, cleared her throat, and then continued. "As I'm sure you're by now guessed, the warriors in this world aren't cats, they're humans- that is to say, Twolegs. They also don't call themselves warriors- they go by shinobi. Or… ninjas.

"And they don't fight like you do. They use weapons- things called kunai, shuriken, swords, and others. I'm sure you'll learn all about those in time.

"Thirdly," she said, then paused a moment for another breath before hurriedly going on. "There is something I must give you." She reached down to the pouch attached to the _belt_ that ran along her _waist_, bringing her loose white _tunic_ to hug her body there. From this pouch she extracted a small roll of what looked like white cloth, which she handed to Jayfeather. "Don't read is yet, there isn't time!" she told him hastily when he began to unroll it curiously. "Which brings me to point number four," she added. "These bodies have many skills that are not instinctive to humans, yet we felt that you would need but didn't have time to learn on your own. Therefore, we- as in, StarClan- saw fit to equip you with these skills. They include things like reading, writing, extensive "human" vocabularies, and two-legged fighting and transportation skills- you know, walking, running, jumping, things like that. Believe it or not, it can actually take Twolegs more than four seasons to learn to walk! So we gave you that one." At this point, she sighed, closed her eyes, and thought for a moment.

"Hmm," she muttered, but then shook her head and opened her eyes. "Now, I think that's all the information I can give you. I do, however, have some instructions." She raised a single finger and smiled a bit. "One. From here on out, you are to go by the first halves of your names _only._ Until you return to our world, you are Jay, Dove, Lion, and Breeze. Understood?" They nodded, and she continued.

"Two. You are not allowed to tell anyone the truth, save four special people. So if anyone asks where you're from, tell them you are nomads whose teacher has told you to visit the Village Hidden in the Leaves and find someone. Which brings us to three: walk-" she pointed to the east, down a small dirt path- "that way until you reach said village. And four: once you are there, you are to find someone named Sakura Haruno. She is one of the four you are allowed to tell your true story to. However, you mustn't tell her right away. She may not believe you, and if she doesn't you're in trouble."

"Um, Yellowfang?" Jayfe- _Jay_ broke in.

"What?" she asked sharply. He simply pointed at her.

She was literally fading, so that you could begin to see the tree she was standing I front of through her shoulder. Glancing down at herself, she cursed and then whipped her head around to stare at each of them in turn. "One last thing," she said quickly. "The village is lead by someone called the hokage. The one who lead before the current hokage was a man named Danzo. He was forced from power and is presumed dead, but he _isn't._ He's still out there, and he fights against you! Listen to me: never, _ever_ trust him, or believe that he's gone! He's just hiding in the shadows, biding his time. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" Jay said. Then he gasped, alarmed. _"Yellowfang!"_

She was almost completely faded. He reached out for her instinctively, but he seemed to be grabbing at thin air. A moment later, she was gone, but all four heard her last warning ring through the air. "Time is of the essence, you four! Hurry!" But it was followed by a most uncharacteristically tender whisper: _"Take care."_

.x.x.x.x.

Well! There you have it: chapter two! What do y'all think? :3 I'll try to make and put up ref sheets for our four kitty-ninjas, as well as Yellowfang, pretty soon. Oh, and by the way, the words in italics in the descriptive paragraphs were words that StarClan gave the group… of course, they didn't know that until the end of the chapter. But still.

-cough cough- Well, then. Both -sama and Mossnose correctly guessed (by the time of this writing) that Number Four was Breezey-kun. :D So, hugs and cookies to you two. Yay!

Well, then, that's all for now! Reviews = love, guys! Ciao!

-Dawny


	3. Four and Four

_Chapter Three: Four and Four_

After Yellowfang's rather… unconventional departure,the four of them were quiet for a moderate stretch of time, each mulling over all the new information they'd received. Finally, though, Dovepaw- no, _Dove_- spoke up.

"So, Jay, what did Yellowfang tell you before we got here?" she asked softly, picking at a slump of grass thoughtfully, as though testing out her brand-new fingers. Looking up, se added, "Spottedleaf didn't tell me much more than that there was another… another world, is what she said, in danger, and I needed to help it, and that I would be part of a four-member team."

"Yeah," agreed Lion. "Feathertail didn't give me much more to go on than that."

"Tallstar wasn't overly talkative, himself," muttered Breeze.

Jay blinked. "Well," he said, "she told me that… there are clans and villages here. Clans are actually big families, and villages are more like our Clans. There are five- the Village Hidden in the Sand, the Village Hidden in the… Clouds, I think, the Village Hidden in the Mist, the Village Hidden in the Rock, and the Village Hidden in the Leaves… which is where we're going, I guess." He thought for a minute, then said, "And the threat that we're supposed to be helping them with isn't fighting among the villages, it's this… force, is how she described it, that they're all fighting against, together. And she also told me that they don't need fighting strength, but a 'push in the right direction'," he added.

Lion nodded slowly, thinking that over. "All right," he said. "What's that thing she gave you, then?"

"Oh!" Jay exclaimed, reaching down to pick it up from where he'd set it on the ground. In truth, he'd forgotten all about the little roll of cloth. He unrolled it quickly, not knowing what to expect. What he saw was not the human markings he knew; rather, they were symbols of some sort, composed of many intersecting lines, some curved and some straight. For a little while, as he sat staring, they appeared random gibberish, but then something inexplicable and magical happened: the gibberish began to sort itself out, as though pieces of a pattern were linking together, and he realized that they were _words, _put into _writing._ And then he realized which words they were, and began to read- for he realized also that this was _reading_, as Yellowfang had said.

He took a deep breath and began to read it aloud.

"Four and four must face the night;

Four and four will win the fight.

Find the four, you gather might;

Loose the four, your end's in sight."

"It's a prophecy," Lion marveled.

"And then below that, there's two sets of four… names," Jay added.

"Then read them!" snapped Breeze. Lion growled at him, but Dove gently put a hand on her mentor's arm and shook her head, telling him to let it go. He relented, but cast one last glare in Breeze's direction as Jay began to read.

"All right, all right!" he grumbled. "The first set is 'the Sightless Sage,' 'the Biting Flame,' 'the Flitting Third,' and 'the Restless Dreamer.' I guess that's supposed to be us, then," he said, looking up. Lion nodded, but Dove looked confused. "Really? You think so?" Lion opened his mouth to speak, but it was Breeze who replied, in a surprisingly low, non-confrontational tone.

"Yes, don't you see? The 'Sightless Sage' obviously refers to Jayfe- Jay," he amended hastily, "Lion is the 'Biting Flame'- a lion bites, and 'flame' and 'blaze' can be synonymous, you three-" he indicated the others- "spend so much time together that calling you 'third' makes sense, and the 'flitting' bit is a reference to your personality. Which leaves me to be the 'Wandering Dreamer'… which also fits," he finished, his eyes flashing darkly.

The Three blinked at each other. "Yeah, what he said," muttered Lion (a bit enviously if we are truthful, dear reader.)

"Okay…" said Dove slowly. "Then I guess the other four are the ones we're supposed to find- the ones Yellowfang said we could tell?"

Jay nodded. "Which means one of them is this Sakura Haruno person."

"Yeah, that makes sense," agreed Lion. "So what are the other names, then?"

"Um," said Jay, glancing down. "It says, 'the Blazing Kitsune', the 'Dancing Cherry Blossom', the 'Masked Hunter', and the 'Crimson Sand'."

"I would be willing to bet that this Sakura is the 'Dancing Cherry Blossom'. It's definitely the most feminine of them," commented Breeze.

"Feminine?" said Jay, frowning at him. "We don't even know if… they… are a female or not! And even if that's the case, there could be more than one girl among the four."

"But Breeze's sort of right," argued Dove. "'Sakura' does seem like a kinda feminine name to me, and besides… doesn't it sort of remind you of cherry blossoms, somehow?"

They were silent for a moment, thinking about that (or rather, Breeze, Jay, and Dove thought; Lion just sat there looking enraged that someone had defended Breeze's argument.)

"Now that you mention it," said Jay slowly, after a short time, "it kinda does."

"Yeah," said Breeze, who himself looked more than a touch surprised that one of the ThunderClan cats had agreed with him willingly. "Yeah, definitely."

"…I guess," muttered Lion mutinously after the other three turned to stare at him, Breeze with perhaps a bit more taunting in his gaze then was absolutely necessary.

"All right, then," Jay said after a moment. "I guess we'd better get moving- looks like it's about sunhigh, so we should get going if we want to get anywhere soon."

Lion nodded, and he and Dove walked up a slight incline to the path they'd been told to follow. Breeze followed a ways back and stood at a distance. Hay rolled the cloth with the prophecy back up and, without anywhere else to put it, opened the pouch on his leg to place it there. That was when he noticed that the pouch was already occupied.

"Wow," he marveled. The he called out to the rest of the group, "Hey! Come over here, check these out!"

They came back over and began to look over the things in Jay's hands with amazement.

It looked somewhat like a glove, only made of leather straps, but that wasn't what made it special; rather, I was the metal claws that were the subject of the intrigue. They were silver, shiny, and protruded from the knuckles of the gloves.

"Amazing," breathed Lion, eyes wide. He appeared to have forgotten his annoyance at Breeze as he gently took the glove from Jay. "It's amazing! It must be to replicate having claws! If we fight right, this should be no different from fighting as cats, in the front at least. The legs'll be a little different, but… where did you find this?" he asked Jay, his voice breathless with wonder. (Breeze rolled his eyes at Lion's open awe, but kept his thoughts to himself.)

"It was in this pouch," Jay replied, patting the black bag on his thigh. "There's another one in there, as well," he added, as Lion eagerly handed the thing back and searched his own pouch. "Yes!" he crowed, finding his own pair safely packed away.

"I have a pair, too," announced Dove after a quick check of her own pouch. "What about you, Breeze?" she asked after a moment. He just nodded.

After Lion had calmed down enough, they all packed back up (with Jay putting the cloth in on top of his claw-gloves) and began walking east, as Yellowfang had indicated. The Three walked a bit ahead, with Breeze trailing silently behind. Lion and Dove talked animatedly, chattering and laughing. Jay one the other, was quiet, preferring to spend this time pondering what Yellowfang had told them. Eventually, he let the other two push ahead until he was walking next to Breeze, where it was certainly much quieter. From the looks of it, Breeze was more surprised than Jay that they weren't bickering at each other, but rather walking together in something that was almost like… comradeship.

.x.x.

At sunset, they hit a forest. It was a lot like ThunderClan's forest, in fact, as compared to, say, ShadowClan's; deciduous trees, bushes, and the like.

"Lion," Jay called as the forest darkened around them. His brother and Dove stopped, and he and Breeze halted when they reached them. "What is it, Jay?" Lion inquired.

"Well, don't you think we should be stopping soon? It's nearly dark, and we know how to rest- and find food- in a forest better than anywhere else we might reach later on," he pointed out. "Besides, I'm tired, it's been a very… eventful… day."

Glancing at the setting sun, Lion sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. But, speaking of food… how are we supposed to hunt? We're so big it's laughable to consider using our normal techniques."

"And besides that," added Dove, "we'd need to make a fire and cook it."

They all turned to stare at her like she was crazy.

"What? Why?" asked Jay, surprised. Dove frowned. "I don't know, it's just… this body wouldn't take raw meat very well, it would hurt it somehow. I can feel it… almost like an instinct. Maybe it's part of that stuff Yellowfang was talking about, those skills and knowledge they gave us."

Breeze nodded slowly. "Yeah, she's right, actually. I do kinda… feel something. Huh."

"Well, the humans we've seen in our territory, the ones that come with the… tents," Lion said, sounding surprised at knowing the word, "the ones with the tents, they cook over little contained fires. I wonder if StarClan taught us how to make those?"

They were quiet for a moment, each trying to locate the skill. Finally, Jay shook his head. "No, I don't think so… but actually," he said, recalling something, "I've seen the humans eating berries and things, too. Maybe I could find some edible berries, instead."

"That's a great idea!" enthused Dove, smiling brightly at him. And then Jay experienced a most peculiar flash of feeling: his cheeks quickly heated, and he looked down consciously doing so. But then is was gone as quickly as it had come, and he found Dove continuing.

"Why don't you and Breeze go gather berries, since he doesn't know much about making camp in a forest, and Lion and I will go find a place to rest the night?"

"That sounds fine, but how will we find you? Humans don't have good senses, remember?" he reminded her. That was something he'd listened to her and Lion discuss in length on the trail.

Her brow furrowed. "Hmmm, that's right… well, we'll stay pretty close to the trail, okay? So just find your way back to the trail and you should be able to find us." Lion smiled proudly at his apprentice's resourcefulness.

"All right, then," Jay replied. "See you in a bit. C'mon, Breeze," he added as he turned and walked into the forest.

"I'm coming! I'm not some mousebrained kit," snapped Breeze, but he followed Jay into the woods all the same (if a bit sulkily).

"Hmmm, what to look for?" Jay muttered as they trekked through the undergrowth, keeping their eyes peeled for prospective bushes. "Juniper berries are certainly edible, but I don't see any juniper bushes around… hey, what are these?" he said in surprise, looking down at a bush he'd found. The berries were red, perhaps a bit purplish, and what looked like a cluster of berries was actually one fruit. Glancing around, he spotted another bush nearby with the same berries, only black.

Plucking one of the red ones from its bush, he sniffed it. To his human nose, at least, it _smelled_ perfectly innocent- nothing like a deathberry or some other poisonous plant. But then again, he doubted a deathberry would even smell like a deathberry to his inferior human nose. So he began examining the bush for signs that other creatures had been eating it and the berries, a sure sign of edibility. And sure enough, there were several clumps of the berries that had been clearly nibbled at, and places that looked as though they'd once held berries but were now empty. So, he carefully popped the berry he was holding into his mouth.

When he didn't immediately fall over dead (and even found it quite tasty), he proclaimed the berries and their black counterparts edible and called Breeze over. "Pick as any of the and those black ones over there as you can," he instructed the other boy, who nodded and began picking the red berries. Jay headed over to the black berry bush and began picking as well.

Ten minutes later they had gathered as many berries as they could carry, even putting some in their steel-claw pouches, and so they made their way back out to the trail. Walking a bit farther down it, they easily found the other two: they'd made themselves at home in a little clearing just off the road. They'd even worked quickly enough that by the time Jay and Breeze arrived they'd had time to make four little pillows of assorted leaves and moss.

They divided the berries evenly among themselves, and thought it wasn't enough to fill their bellies, it was delicious and they were comfortable after their long, busy day, and so no one complained, and once again they were peaceful together, and even Lion and Breeze were, if not friends, then comrades. Clanmates, in a way.

They would need that if they hope to survive the war they were about to be pushed into.

.x.x.x.x.

Whew! That was a tough one. :P Do you know how hard it is to describe raspberries and blackberries without being able to call them raspberries and blackberries? I do, now. And I'll tell you one thing: I have new respect for the Erin Hunters. I really, really do. xD

Well, this was bombshell chapter no. 1… sooo, what did you guys think of the prophecy? That was harder than one might imagine to come up with… eventually I just decided to go with a poetic/rhyming thing just because it actually simplified it for me. Poems, especially rhyming poems, just come really naturally for me. 'Course, that certainly doesn't make it without difficulty… but what was actually really hard was coming up with the "four and four" names, as I call them. Hopefully you've at least got theories on who they are? I mean, the Naruto ones, of course, since we already saw the cats dissecting theirs. I tried to do it so, if you knew the characters, it would be pretty easy to figure out… well, hopefully, lol.

Sooo, I think I'll leave off with that… please, do review if you haven't! I'd love to know what you all think! :D

'Cha!

-Dawnstep


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